Water main breaks and leaking water supply pipes cost American taxpayers billions of dollars every year in lost water and repair costs. Necessary upgrades promise to place additional stresses on taxpayers long into the future. “Building and replacing water and sewage lines alone will cost some $660 billion to $1.1 trillion,” over the next twenty years, notes Cohen.

“The task at hand” he says, is to find the “most efficient and cost-effective” solutions. “Inserting some market discipline into the process would go a long way toward achieving that goal,” Cohen continues.

Yet anti-competitive government contracting policies prevent many local governments from employing some of the most affordable and effective technologies available. For example, many do not allow PVC pipe to compete for contracts, favoring older pipe technologies. Yet PVC is very affordable, inert, and does not corrode like metal materials. Such anti-competitive procurement policies provide advantages to politically favored interests at the expense of taxpayers. Some localities follow such rules simply because of what Cohen calls “bureaucratic inertia”: failure to update procurement policies to address the development of new technologies.

“Given the degree of deterioration plaguing our underground water networks, and the severe financial constraints facing local governments, continuing outdated procurement practices is a prescription for disaster,” Cohen points out.

Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Cincinnati; Columbus, Ohio; Jackson, Mississippi; Los Angeles; Memphis; Miami; New York; Philadelphia; and Phoenix all bar PVC from the competitive bidding process. Meanwhile, communities that currently allow such competition have already benefited. Great Falls, Montana, for example, reduced its water main failure rate from 122 breaks in 1997 to just 35 by 2009 by allowing PVC pipe makers to bid for contracts.

Bonner Cohen is available for interviews. Please contact Brian McGraw at bmcgraw@cei.org or 202.331.2266.